Cassandra Rising
Cassandra Rising is Area 11's fourth EP, released after Let It Resonate. It was released on the 6th year anniversary of All The Lights In The Sky. It currently is only available to 5$+ tier Patreons and on CD, with no current plans for a public release. "It's the soundtrack to the first episode of an anime we'd make if we ever got the chance, and an idea we had way back when we were making ATLITS in 2012." All the tracks are labeled as part to Cassandra, with a square bracket appended giving each track more description with two words separated by a colon. Of note is that Cassandra pt. II's bracket appendage is "Digital Haunt". Cassandra pt. II also is the only track that had been previously released, in ATLITS. It also does not seem to have been re-mixed for this EP. Aside from Cassandra pt. II and Cassandra pt. VII, all the tracks are instrumental. Track Listing #Cassandra (pt I) Person:A #Cassandra (pt II) [Digital:Haunt] #Cassandra (pt III) Aiko:Unknown #Cassandra (pt IV) Unus:Nulla #Cassandra (pt V) In:Florescence #Cassandra (pt VI) Re:Match #Cassandra (pt VII) [Re:Set] Track Comments Area 11 released a companion essay describing the relationship of the tracks to the theoretical anime this album was meant to describe. Cassandra (pt I) Person:A Meet Aiko, a young girl living in Tokyo. She is engrossed in editing a video on her laptop. Her room is dark and untidy, the mood cold and foreboding. She is illuminated by the fluorescent glow of her computer's screen. The video she is editing is a music video, we can see it is from an artist called Cassandra. Slowly, she falls asleep sat at her desk as rain begins to fall outside. Cassandra (pt II) Digital:Haunt This is the intro to the anime. If that wasn't obvious. Cassandra (pt III) Aiko:Unknown The next day, Aiko is tired from staying up late working. She travels to her school, taking the train. She seems numb to her surroundings, barely noticing her brother and father at breakfast and hardly acknowledging the other commuters on the train. Arriving at school, people are discussing the new video from Cassandra, the anonymous Internet popstar, unaware that their unpopular classmate is her alter ego. Aiko is invisible to them, a background element, an extra. She is called up to do a presentation to her class about her hobbies, but she has forgotten to prepare anything. She panics and runs out of the classroom. Cassandra (pt IV) Unus:Nulla We rejoin the story much later. Aiko has been accidentally locked in the school, and it is now evening. She follows a mysterious boy into a deserted classroom. When he tries to talk to her, she can't understand what he is saying, and he seems to disappear into thin air as bright lights illuminate the windows, dazzling her. All at once, the glass is blown out of the windows and many large mechanical arms enter the room, knocking over desks and smashing into the walls and ceiling. Aiko dives to the floor, but is picked up by one of the arms. She screams and an electrical discharge explodes from her body, making the arm recoil and dropping her. However, although it appears for a moment that she is free, a second arm swiftly attacks her, impaling her through the chest. It pulls her dying body through the broken window, revealing a huge mechanical monster, which eats her. Cassandra (pt V) In:Florescence After waking up alive and well in her bed the next morning, Aiko finds that the school is intact. She meets the mysterious boy again, and that evening they speak together online. He has somehow figured out that she is Cassandra, the first person to guess, and over the course of an evening's conversation they grow closer. Cassandra (pt VI) Re:Match We rejoin the story as Aiko faces off against the mechanical monster in the school again. Although she is initially beaten back, this time she discharges an even greater electrical power, which she is slowly starting to be able to control, and she seemingly destroys the monster. Cassandra (pt VII) Re:Set The outro. Instrumental Track Description Much of the instrumental tracks in Cassandra Rising are very similar to Sparkles*'s The Solution series. Cassandra (pt I) Person:A This track is slow, composed of ambient synths and slow, slightly dark piano. Near the end, a screech that sounds slightly synthetic and slightly like a scream rises and falls. Cassandra (pt III) Aiko:Unknown This track contains dark ambient sounds. Eastern sounding vocal work appears near the beginning of the song, before fading out and being replaced with a throbbing bass beat. Eastern string instruments are also brought in. In the second half, the beat and strings drop out, leaving just the ambient synths and a quiet bell riff. Cassandra (pt IV) Unus:Nulla "Unas Nulla" translates to "One Zero". This track starts with booming drums and an epic choir melody. Tense strings are also brought in, as well as a more complicated bass and plucky electronic synths. Cassandra (pt V) In:Florescence This is a quiet and peaceful piano track. A quiet violin joins in around the one minute mark. Cassandra (pt VI) Re:Match This track starts out with tense ambient synths. Suddenly, drums and guitar are added as the tempo picks up and a synth arpeggio accompaniment begins. The guitar melody switches between dark and hopeful several times. Around the 4 minute mark, all fades out and is replaced with a simple acoustic guitar line. The electric guitar returns to accompany. The drums return and the tone of the song becomes very hopeful and uplifting, victorious Category:Music Category:EP Category:Area 11 Category:Cassandra